Five Times Kikyou Thought about Love
by paynesgrey
Summary: -and One Time She Didn't- Love is not hers to have, but Kikyou thinks about it anyway. Kikyou x Inuyasha. Pre-Series, Early Series Canon. Oneshot


AN: Written for the "Love" theme at iy wiltedrose on Livejournal. This is a one-shot and will not be continued.

Five Times Kikyou Thought about Love (and the One Time She Didn't)

Before Kaede was born, Kikyou vaguely remembered a hot summer day where her parents had scooted her outside to play and retreated back inside their humble home. Her father turned around anxiously and looked to see if she had followed him. The young Kikyou hid behind a tree and watched him go inside, and after a beat, decided to circle around the house and look into the small hole she had chipped out herself.

She wanted to see why often times her parents would shuffle her away to the old miko to look after or tell her to play outside through the afternoon to supper time.

When she looked into the hole she never expected such an intimate sight. She had some idea of what her father and mother did together. They loved each other, and though her mother was often ill, her father affectionately doted on her mother and kissed and held her as much as he could.

It was true love, the old village miko had taught her. Many had said she would experience that someday too, but when she asked Aiko-dono, the old miko looked at her with tight lips and haunted eyes.

The day Aiko-dono told her mother that Kikyou had incredible spiritual power, enough to replace her after she died; she knew what that old woman's eyes had silently meant.

Miko weren't meant for things like love, not the kind of love her parents shared.

--

Many winters had past, and Kikyou was well in her teens when the taijiya came into her village. Kikyou was beyond her training and said to be more gifted than the previous miko who protected the village. Kikyou killed many youkai that tried to wander through, so much that her name became widely known.

She resolved herself to think nothing of fame. She cared only of duty, and her parents and the old miko who trained her was also long dead. She cared for her sister Kaede and bore the great burden of this village. It was her life, and Kikyou accepted it.

When the taijiya pleaded her to guard the Shikon no Tama, Kikyou realized the moment she took the powerful jewel in her hand, her femininity would be shelved.

She would shed her skin as woman, and her heart would be stored away in glass. She stared at the jewel and felt its power, already choosing her before the answer came from her lips.

She would give up love for this, for the safety of her people.

She already knew this when she took her sacred vow. She couldn't love any one man anymore. She would love all men and all life too.

--

A silver-haired hanyou complicated things. She couldn't kill him. He was too human and enduring to deserve her smite. He could die easily too. He was weak, more than some, and yet, his humanity seemed the strongest to her. It was dormant, she thought. He just needed a good influence.

So she shot arrows around him as he became immobilized against the tree.

She held back an amused smile as she studied his face; it was smooth, and his eyes were fiery and dangerous like his teeth and claws, but his lips looked soft – like any other human's. She wondered just how soft they felt.

She turned away, hoping her thoughts would fall to her feet, never to be retrieved again. They did not, and she thought about the softness his skin – this hanyou that looked and felt more human than demon.

Kikyou wondered if she could love him – only if he were human, and if she weren't a miko as well.

--

She loved him, and he held her in the warm sunset, and she felt his intake of breath against her hair. He shuddered against her as he held her, and Kikyou knew he wasn't cold. She snuggled closer to him, taking in his warmth, wondering how warm he would be against her flesh on a cold autumn night. In their own home, maybe. As her husband.

Tomorrow she promised to bring Inuyasha the jewel to make him human. Then, she would no longer have to take care of the jewel anymore.

She could be a real woman.

Kikyou cried that night, tears of joy and sobs of anticipation. She felt like a worm cocooned in his warmth, in their hope, and tomorrow they would both crack free from their shells within the heat of a pure wish.

Morning came and devilry sighed within the violet color of a hazy sky. Kikyou was blindsided, betrayed.

As his angry claws tore into her shoulder, she promised herself to never think of love again. She died with a feeling more than vengeance. Kikyou felt like an unfulfilled fool.

--

The truth did not always set you free. Kikyou was brought back unnaturally, with a partial soul where love did not dwell, nor did it give her the energy to move this abominable body.

Only vengeance did that.

Maybe she still loved him. It was a wound that would never close inside her heart. But apparently, Inuyasha had moved on – somewhat, and her real killer still roamed free.

It was impossible in this body, with this borrowed life, that she should take him back. Yet, Kikyou thought it about, in odd moments of the day, when she was wading through streams or padding down rocky paths.

She thought of him every time she consumed a fresh soul, with the residue of the former host's memory of the loved ones they were leaving behind.

Then she cried silently. She reclined in the tree and thought about plans, not what she lost. Not what those souls lost. She didn't have time for that.

She didn't have the heart either.

--

Kikyou knew perfectly well why she was here. A large chunk of the Shikon no Tama pulsated in her palm, and she stood before Naraku and tossed it in front of him.

She didn't care what he did with it. She could kill him now, but it wasn't time yet. She didn't think of the girl who she took it from, nor did she think of the former lover she betrayed.

It wasn't like that. She didn't care if they didn't understand her motives. She wasn't part of their group. She wasn't part of anything, much to Naraku's dismay.

She snorted when he asked her to join him. She knew the dirty intentions behind it, the dark perversion that longed for her within his wretched heart.

Kikyou scoffed at him as he tried to convince her, but she didn't sense any disappointment in him when she refused. He merely grinned at her, red eyes knowing and hoping – calculating that she was just within his grasp.

Instead, she pitied him as she turned around and left his stronghold. She couldn't give him what he truly wanted. That was gone and buried with her old bones fifty years ago. In this form she could give him nothing.

Except maybe death, for which he was aware, and Naraku made no secret that he felt her aspirations toward him were futile and mostly delusional.

Kikyou smirked darkly at the thought. Perhaps that was what she wanted him to think.

END


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